


Trying His Best

by SeventeensOneBraincell



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Demon AU, Jeonghan is satan, Jihoon is naked for a surprising amount of time, M/M, Mingyu just simps for Wonwoo like the whole time, Office AU, Soonhoon - Freeform, Soonyoung is a demon, Wonwoo just wants to be left alone ffs, and Jihoon is just so annoyed by him, but no smut, no like really he's satan, seokmin tries his hardest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24994351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeventeensOneBraincell/pseuds/SeventeensOneBraincell
Summary: Jihoon is a normal man, albeit a bit feisty, working a normal job, living a normal life. Soonyoung, a demon, gets bored of sitting in Hell all day, and Jihoon has caught his attention. So, Jihoon has to learn to cope with ademonin his home, because Soonyoung isnotleaving.
Relationships: Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This work will be posted in two parts, this first part right now, and the second part a few days from now. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

“Please please please please pleeeeeease, Jeonghan?”

“For the seventeenth time, I’m not sending you to torture that innocent child.”

“He’s not a child, he’s a monster! And I love him!”

“ _You’re_ supposed to be the monster.”

“No, I’m a demon, not a monster. You of all people should know that!”

Jeonghan rubbed the space between his eyebrows with his pointer finger and thumb, sighing dramatically and closing his eyes as if he could block out Soonyoung’s idiocy.

“I can’t just assign you to someone who hasn’t done anything wrong. We might need you to cover an actual case, what are we gonna do then?”

“Just send Chan, he’s free!”

“No, he’s my baby, he’s not going anywhere. What if he got hurt? What if the person he was assigned to hurt his feelings?!”

“Jeonghan!” Soonyoung whined, dragging out the a sound.

Jeonghan sighed again, considering his options and whether he really wanted to keep having to deal with Soonyoung, “Fine, I’ll assign you to the monster child if you can prove something he’s done that’s worthy of this by tomorrow morning.”

Soonyoung’s face lit up, his wide grin scrunching his eyes into small slanted lines, “Thank you thank you thank you!!” He ran off hurriedly to find a case worthy of his talents.

Jeonghan dragged a hand down his face, letting his cheek rest in his palm, “One day he’s gonna get himself killed.”

\--

“ONE DAY IM GONNA LEAVE YOU AND I’M GONNA GET THAT BEST BUY REWARDS CARD!”

Jihoon’s boss sighed, grabbing the glass of water that, at the moment, he really wished was alcohol, sighing and slugging the last sips, “Jesus Christ.”

When the water was finished, the glass was slammed onto a desk, barely holding itself together from shattering, “Jihoon, for the seventeenth time, Best Buy employees can’t have Best Buy rewards cards. You already get an employee discount.”

Jihoon shook his pointer finger at his boss violently, trying to express the enormous anger that he felt with his tiny, tiny body. He ignored the fact that his intimidation factor was lowered significantly by him having to point _upwards_ at his beanpole of a boss.

“You’ll see...one day…” Jihoon grumbled, dropping his hand in defeat and pivoting violently on his heel to go back to his desk. He plopped down in his swivel chair, toes barely able to steady him against the floor as the chair swayed with his weight. 

“Hey, Jihoon?” his boss walked over, looking just a bit like a kicked puppy, “I can see you’re really stressed out; maybe you should take the rest of the day off.”

Jihoon looked up at his boss with wide eyes, confused at the sudden offer after he’d just yelled about a rewards card. He was very small and had no money, so you could imagine the kind of stress he was under.

Without even a thank you, Jihoon swiftly stood up, grabbed his jacket, and left the building. As he rushed out the door, car keys swinging off his finger, he couldn’t help the snarky remark directed at his coworkers.

“See ya, suckers!”

\--

Soonyoung watched Jihoon storm out of the building, suit jacket hung over his shoulder by a finger. He finally had something to show Jeonghan; Jihoon had yelled at his boss, gotten fired, and then taunted his coworkers on the way out. Soonyoung wouldn’t mention how he had felt himself smile involuntarily at the way that Jihoon had screamed at his boss, or how he felt like cheering him on. He just looked so non-threatening, but he had the temper of a demon. He was sure to be fun to hang out with. Soonyoung, if he had estimated correctly, was a few inches taller than Jihoon, and he was already so excited to tower over the tiny man. Hugs would be fun.

He watched as the small man got into his black Honda Accord, pulling a pair of aviator sunglasses from some compartment in the car and smoothly putting them on, looking almost confident. Soonyoung wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard Jihoon rev the engine at least once before speeding out of the parking lot onto the main road, though he quickly slammed on the brakes as he almost sped into oncoming traffic. He needed to work on being suave. It was adorable.

\--

Jihoon sauntered down the hallway towards his apartment, a hand in his slacks pocket. His blazer was slung over his other arm, keys clutched in his hand. His sunglasses hung from his collar, bouncing slightly against his chest as he walked. 

“Oh, hey, Jihoon!” his next door neighbor, Seokmin, greeted as he left his own apartment, “What are you doing home so early?”

Jihoon wasn’t strong enough to fight the urge to return Seokmin’s blinding grin, letting the edges of his lips curve upwards as he replied, “I got let off because I wanted a Best Buy rewards card. My boss felt so bad he couldn’t give me one that he just let me go home for the day.”

“Oh, cool! I was just about to head out and grab some lunch with Seungkwan. Wanna come?” Seokmin’s innocent confidence was contagious, but Jihoon resisted the temptation, knowing how much he would regret letting himself end up at a table with the two most oblivious chatterboxes. He didn’t want to be associated with those two in a crowded restaurant.

“No thanks, Seokmin, maybe next time. I have some work to catch up on before tomorrow.” By work he definitely meant Forensic Files, but Seokmin didn’t need to know that.

Seokmin’s face fell, but he masked his disappointment with a quick, fake smile, “That’s okay! I hope you can get it all done!”

Jihoon had one-hundred-and-thirteen episodes left to binge. He was going to have to work very hard. Seokmin had a reason to be legitimately concerned. 

“It’s gonna be tough, but I think I can get it done by my next shift; have fun at lunch!”

“Thanks!” Seokmin’s smile widened again as he locked his door and walked past Jihoon.

Jihoon went to unlock his own door, friendly smile dropping from his face as he instinctually tossed his jacket onto the kitchen counter along with his keys and wallet before turning to flop onto the couch.

But his flopping was quickly put to an end, because there was a man on his couch.

“Hi, Jihoon!”

\--

“There’s your evidence, Jeonghan!” Soonyoung exclaimed proudly, hands on his hips after presenting his case to Satan once more.

Jeonghan rolled his eyes slowly, heaving a sigh and glaring down at Soonyoung, “Why do you care so much about this kid, anyways?”

Soonyoung gasped, “Why? Because he’s a God. Damn. Monster.”

Jeonghan almost laughed - being Satan and all - but didn’t voice his thoughts to the demon. He could see how passionate Soonyoung seemed to be about this small Best Buy employee, and Jeonghan really didn’t want to have to deal with this every day. He figured that his best bet was to just let Soonyoung do what he wanted. That was always the smartest solution with Soonyoung. 

\--

“I’m sorry, who are you? And why are you in my apartment?” Jihoon asked, realizing soon after that the man had also somehow known his name. That was worrying.

“I’m Soonyoung, I’m a demon!”

Jihoon was silent for a moment, staring at the stranger draped over his old, crusty brown couch like it was a chaise lounge in ancient Rome and he was being fed grapes by hand while being fanned with a palm leaf. 

Then Jihoon started laughing. He couldn’t help it; he doubled over, clutching his stomach, feeling tears form in his eyes. When he looked up, swiping a finger underneath his eye, the ‘demon’ was staring at him and looking highly confused.

“I have to admit, I’ve never heard that one before. But seriously, who the hell are you and why are you in my apartment? How did you even get in?”

“Demon things. You wouldn’t understand.”

Jihoon felt another burst of laughter break past his lips, “Right, yeah, demon things. Sure, loser. Now get out of my house. If you leave now, I won’t call the cops.” 

Jihoon pointed to the door as if he needed to direct Soonyoung to the door, “Fuckin’ weebs.” he mumbled under his breath, still waiting for the supposed demon to get out.

“Jihoon, I’m not lying. I’m offended you would think so lowly of me.” Soonyoung placed a hand over his heart, “But if you really don’t believe me, I can show you.”

“Why are you talking like you know me? I’ve never met you.”

“But I’ve been watching you for a really long time.” Soonyoung’s grin only got more threatening with this remark.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m calling the cops.” Jihoon reached into his pocket for his phone, sliding the screen over to the emergency keypad, but before he knew what was happening he heard Soonyoung shout _‘Wait!'_ and the phone burst into flames in his palm. He screamed and threw it at Soonyoung, “What the hell?!”

He looked up to see Soonyoung’s arm outstretched, fingers still glowing slightly red and chest heaving from adrenaline. The demon’s black eyes were wide with fear, glancing down at the smoldering iPhone on the carpet. 

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, it just happened! You scared me!”

Jihoon was still staring, mouth open, before he looked up from his burning phone to Soonyoung, “Out of my house. Now.”

“What?! Did you not see me just set your phone on _fire_? Do you still not believe that I’m a demon?”

“Demon, weeb, I don’t care. You need to leave.” he bent down to tentatively poke a finger at his phone, which was still smoking. He sighed, knowing he definitely needed a new one now. There goes his lunch money. 

Soonyoung’s face dropped into a deep frown, “I worked so hard to get here! You have no idea how long it took me to find something to show Satan that was bad enough for me to be sent here, you can’t kick me out now!”

“I didn’t ask for this. I don’t care how hard you worked, I don’t want you here.”

Soonyoung’s bottom lip began to wobble, his eyes starting to water as he made eye contact with Jihoon. The image was strange, black pit-like eyes glistening. Jihoon, though, didn’t really seem to care, emphasizing his command with a harsh point at Soonyoung, and then a point at the door. Soonyoung was pretty sure that Jihoon was supposed to be the demon, and their places had just been switched. He knew Jihoon wasn’t actually anyone worthy of a demon torturing them - it had taken forever and half a lie to convince Jeonghan of this - so he was surprised at how mean Jihoon actually was.

Tears spilled over and ran down Soonyoung’s chubby cheeks as he walked to the door with his head low, glancing at Jihoon once more before he left - though he didn’t have to lift his head to do so. The shorter was crouched down, testing to see if his phone was still too hot to touch, not even looking at Soonyoung. He really didn’t seem to care. 

Soonyoung didn’t know what he’d expected, but it wasn’t this. He’d thought a random stranger showing up on your couch in your locked apartment and knowing your name would be enough to scare someone into doing whatever was asked of them, but Jihoon was obviously some sort of exception. Too many episodes of Forensic Files. 

After Soonyoung was out the door - he was nice enough to close it behind him - Jihoon stood, making sure to lock said door, before kicking his dead phone across the floor in annoyance and finally plopping down on the couch.

He grabbed his remote, realizing too late that he had yet to put in the DVD of the season he was currently on and would have to get up to put it in. He was already too broke to afford Netflix, now he didn’t have a phone, now _this_?

\--

Jihoon slapped a hand on top of his phone to stop Shinee’s Ring Ding Dong from piercing his still half-asleep brain and giving him a headache as it did every morning. He still didn’t know why he hadn’t changed it. He thought he could just go right back to sleep, but he felt the bed jostle slightly and then heard a, _‘Oh my god, you too?’_ and he was officially awake. His eyes blinked open, staring groggily down at the foot of the bed where he saw a figure sitting criss-cross and looking directly at him.

He shot up and rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Not only was there someone sitting on the end of his bed, but it also happened to be the goddamn _weeb_ from yesterday. 

“What are you doing here!?” He shouted, feeling his throat scratch, raspy from not having used it overnight. He threw the closest thing that he could find at the _‘demon’_ , but it happened to be a pillow, and it didn’t do much damage, smacking the man on the shoulder and falling limply to the bed below. 

“Did you think I was just gonna give up? I worked hard to get here, Jihoon, giving up isn’t an option.” He grinned mischievously, pretending to study his nails and looking up at Jihoon through his almost non-existent eyelashes. 

Jihoon rolled his eyes, throwing the covers off and getting out of bed, realizing too late that he was in an XXL Billabong t-shirt (a ‘sleep shirt’ in his mother’s words) that made him look like goddamn Ebenezer Scrooge, _trembling_ off to bed with a candle for looking in the mirror.

Soonyoung’s eyes, Jihoon noted that they were black, somehow lit up when the man saw how small Jihoon looked in the giant shirt. Jihoon swore softly under his breath, reaching for a pair of sweatpants that laid by the side of the bed, pulling them on quickly and glaring at Soonyoung in the process. 

Once he’d pulled them high enough to be a shirt in themselves, he pointed at the door, “Once again, get out. I won’t say it again.”

Now Soonyoung rolled his eyes playfully, “Okay, Jihoon, if you say so~” he sang as he essentially sashayed to the door, opening it dramatically and wiggling his fingers in a wave as he slipped out, closing the door behind him. 

Jihoon flopped back onto the bed, sighing dramatically before rolling over and going back to sleep. The next time Jihoon opened his eyes, a burning smell caught his attention, and he sprinted out into his living room to see _all_ of his Forensic Files DVDs aflame in the center of the carpet (which was also burning), and Soonyoung smiling and waving at him from behind the bonfire. 

“You’re insane!” Jihoon screeched, running to grab the fire extinguisher from his closet. When he came back and put the fire out, he made sure to spray Soonyoung in the face at least twice. 

“Hey!” Soonyoung sputtered through the foam, wiping his face and pouting.

“That’s what you get. I told you to get out…” Jihoon’s sentence trailed off and Soonyoung glanced at the other to see his eyes glistening slightly with tears.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Soonyoung asked, seemingly genuinely concerned for the smaller.

Jihoon’s head shot up angrily, tears gone as he glared at Soonyoung, “Who do you think you are? Invading my house and burning my stuff? You’re crazy!”

“Jihoon, this is my job! I told you that! I’m a demon!” 

“Honestly, I don’t care. If you don’t leave now and never come back I’ll be calling the police.”

Soonyoung smiled sadly, “Nice try. You’re the only one that can see me, that’s how this works.”

Jihoon stayed silent, stalking to the front door and opening it as an invitation - no, a demand - for Soonyoung to leave. The ‘demon’ kept his smug grin, marching out the door dramatically. The second he was past the threshold, Jihoon slammed the door, making sure to lock it before returning sadly to try and salvage anything he could from the pile of burnt DVDs.

\--

Swearing violently, Jihoon once more slammed his hand on the snooze button frantically, deciding that he was going to change up that cursed song once and for all. He wondered what he should choose next, debating between another song or going back to one of Apple’s disgusting noises. The Apple ringtones might be able to infuriate him enough to get him out of bed without snoozing it, for fear of hearing it again. That seemed like the best option. 

Upon getting out of bed, once again in nothing but the large t-shirt, he heard pots and pans clanging around in his kitchen, sighing as he prepared himself to interact once again with that little shit. He made sure to get dressed - he had to go to work today - before leaving his room, though he was slightly worried something might have happened while he was getting ready. 

Missing only his dress shoes and blazer, he rolled up his shirt sleeves in preparation, scared of what he’d walk out to. The scene that he entered upon was not one that he’d ever thought he would witness; a pot hanging upside down on Soonyoung’s head acting as a hat and the man trying to flip whole, raw, still-in-their-shells eggs inside of a large pot on the stove. The stove wasn’t on. Soonyoung needed serious help. 

Jihoon didn’t even have to say anything before the demon turned around, “Oh, good morning, Jihoon! I figured I’d try to make you breakfast, but I can’t seem to figure out how ‘food’ works.” 

Jihoon wanted to smack Soonyoung over the head with a frying pan. (Though he was slightly impressed at Soonyoung’s dedication to this whole ‘demon’ act). Jihoon took the ladle (Soonyoung was using a _ladle_ to flip whole _eggs_ ), from Soonyoung, tossing it in the sink and turning on the stove. He grabbed a pan, turned the pot over so that the eggs tumbled into the pan, then grabbed them, glad when they weren’t too hot to the touch. He cracked the eggs, tossing the shells behind him into the sink, beginning to push the eggs around in the pan to scramble them. 

Soonyoung bent down, face almost in the pan altogether, (Jihoon wanted to shove his face down into the hot pan), to see what the eggs were doing. It was as if he’d never seen an egg before.

“Why would you crack them open? They looked fine before.” 

“You can’t eat the fucking shells, dumbass.” Jihoon said through gritted teeth, going to grab a plate from his cabinet. He made sure all the dinnerware was on the lowest possible shelves so he never had to worry, but it was evident that Soonyoung had gotten into the cabinets and moved everything around. So now Jihoon couldn’t reach the plates.

Sighing heavily and refusing to ask for Soonyoung’s help, Jihoon took a glass that was still on the bottom shelf and dumped the scrambled eggs into it, hating every second of his day so far.

“That’s what those are for?” Soonyoung asked incredulously. Jihoon just nodded, refusing to admit that no, glasses were not for scrambled eggs, but he couldn’t reach the plates so he just chose to use a glass instead to avoid having to swallow his pride and ask for Soonyoung’s help. 

And so that morning, Jihoon ate his scrambled eggs out of a glass (and no, he did not offer Soonyoung any). Once he finished, he placed the glass and fork in the sink, rolling his sleeves back down and slipping his shoes on, grabbing his blazer from its hook by the front door. 

“Come on, Soonyoung.” He demanded, gesturing at the now open door with his briefcase.

Soonyoung gasped, “Do I get to go to work with you!?” he looked like an excited puppy, clapping his hands together like a seal. 

“No.” Jihoon said firmly, “You are leaving my house and this time you’re not coming back.”

“Right, and that worked the first two times.” Soonyoung smirked playfully as Jihoon clenched his jaw, “I get to go to work with Jihoon~” Soonyoung skipped out the front door, ignoring Jihoon’s protests as the smaller followed the demon, slamming the door and chasing the other down the hallway. 

Jihoon had tried to shut the door of the car too fast for Soonyoung to follow him in, but it was soon discovered that Soonyoung could teleport, because the demon had no trouble in just _appearing_ next to Jihoon as he was halfway to work, nearly making Jihoon swerve off the road.

“Believe me now?” Soonyoung asked, knowing Jihoon still hadn’t believed the demon thing was real.

“How the fuck did you do that?” Jihoon’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel with all of his strength.

“Demon, remember?”

“You’re insane.”

“Says the one who just watched a person teleport into their passenger seat.”

“Jesus christ.” 

\--

Jihoon needed answers. Soonyoung had practically skipped throughout the entire building, asking Jihoon the _dumbest_ questions about what simple everyday things were. He had asked if a stapler was used for sex. Jihoon had said yes, just for the fun of it. Finally though, they reached Jihoon’s cubicle, Soonyoung immediately leaping into the spinny chair and shrieking with laughter as it sent him sliding across the tile. Jihoon swore under his breath, grabbing the chair and tipping it so that Soonyoung tumbled to the floor. He took his place in the chair, nudging Soonyoung to the side with his foot as the man groaned in pain on the floor. 

Finally Soonyoung stood, grinning mischievously before body slamming on top of Jihoon, sending the chair careening across the cubicle and crashing into the flimsy wall. Jihoon yelled angrily, feeling blood rush to his face as he got up, grabbed a stapler from his desk, and chucked it at Soonyoung, who suddenly looked taken aback, “Jihoon,” he put a hand to his chest, “did we just have sex?”

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you??” Jihoon screeched, kicking the side of his desk and yelling once more in angry pain.

The chair was still spinning slowly and as it did, Jihoon met eyes with the person in the cubicle next to him, who was peering over the top of theirs with wide eyes. Jihoon glared at Seungkwan, the other quickly ducking back behind his cubicle wall. A few moments later, Jihoon saw him run away from his desk and towards their manager’s office. 

He turned to Soonyoung in anger, “Okay, oh powerful demon, explain to me why the hell Seungkwan is reporting me after everything you just did.”  
“Like I said before,” Soonyoung grinned, “Only you can see me.” He winked from his place on the floor and Jihoon had the sudden urge to kick the demon directly between his slightly spread legs. 

“Jihoon?” he swung around to face a concerned Mingyu, suddenly very aware of their height difference, “Is everything okay? Seungkwan said you were harassing him?”

“Um...dumb customer?”

“Jihoon, you work in accounting.”

“Bad morning?”

Mingyu sighed, “Just...please try to be more conscious of your coworkers.”

“Gotcha.” Jihoon plopped back into his swivel chair, essentially dismissing his boss, “This is your fault.” he hissed at Soonyoung.

“I’m sorry?” Mingyu stuck his head back into the cubicle.

“Nothing, nothing.” Jihoon said frantically, directing a glare at Soonyoung before turning back to his computer (which currently had nothing open because Soonyoung had stopped him from actually doing any work). 

\-- 

Jihoon threw his briefcase onto the couch, snapping at Soonyoung to shut the door behind him. He set the bag of takeout onto the counter, shaking his head as he thought back to a half an hour ago when Soonyoung had practically yelled in his ear the entire time he was ordering his food and he couldn’t say anything because then he’d look crazy. _Was_ he crazy? Was Soonyoung some insane conscious? A voice in his head? Was there some message here?

Jihoon loosened the tie around his neck, draping it over the back of the couch and mumbling to Soonyoung that he was going to take a quick shower before dinner. He turned the water as hot as it would go, stripping off his work clothes and shutting the door behind him, locking it for his own sanity even though Soonyoung had broken into his locked apartment multiple times (and could apparently teleport??). 

Soonyoung heard a little click come from the bathroom that Jihoon had walked into, curiously turning the handle and jiggling it when it didn’t open. Fascinating. Maybe he was stuck? He waited a few minutes before hearing a small thud, then a soft swear come from the bathroom. Soonyoung started for the door, trying the handle one more time before giving up and teleporting through. Soonyoung yanked back the shower curtain, revealing Jihoon, bent in half, ass to the door as he grabbed a bottle that was on the floor. Jihoon screamed, seeing Soonyoung from between his legs, reaching over to smack Soonyoung and slipping. He fell to the shower floor, head hitting the wall. He clutched his head between his hands, groaning in pain.

“Jihoon! Are you okay?” Jihoon tried desperately to yell profanities at Soonyoung, but his head was pounding so hard he couldn’t think of the words. He felt a hand on his back, and as bad as he wanted to swat it away, when he moved his hands from his head the pain got worse. The hot water continued to beat down on him, and he wasn’t sure if it was helping or hurting. He knew there was nothing he could do for now, so he let himself succumb to the pain, feeling his mind go dark.

Soonyoung grabbed a towel, using it to pad his hands as he turned Jihoon over in the shower and propped him up so his head was out of the water, desperately trying to remember what humans did when they were trying to save other humans from dying. He vaguely remembered seeing a human die once in water, and one of the witnesses had dragged him out of the water and kissed him to try and help. It hadn’t worked, but he didn’t really have any other ideas, so why not? 

Turning the shower off first so he didn’t get soaked, Soonyoung leaned over the edge of the tub and placed his hands on Jihoon’s chest (remembering that from the kiss thing as well), pressing slightly before moving his face in and placing his lips on Jihoon’s. He’d never kissed anyone before, so he wasn’t sure if there was anything to do from this point, but the witness from the death he’d watched had kept their lips connected for a while, so Soonyoung stayed where he was, waiting patiently. 

Jihoon came back to consciousness, head still pounding, and a strange feeling on his lips. He fluttered his eyes open to see that he was still in the shower, naked, and Soonyoung was _kissing him_. 

He shoved the other off of him, “What are you doing?!” he screeched, desperately trying to cover himself with his hands. Soonyoung, however, looked overjoyed.

“Oh my god, I did it! I saved your life!” Jihoon’s eyes were wide in shock at the fact that Soonyoung thought he’d saved him. 

“Wait a second...Oh no...Jeonghan’s gonna kill me!”

“Jeonghan?”

“I’m a demon and I just saved a life! We’re not supposed to do that!” Soonyoung seemed to be freaking out some, studying the shower and Jihoon as if looking for a way to knock the other out again.

“Soonyoung, you didn’t save my life.” Jihoon brought his knees into his chest, trying to make as little of himself visible as possible, “I was just unconscious.”

“Oh, good.” Soonyoung calmed down, returning his gaze to Jihoon’s face. 

The two stared at each other for a moment in silence, Jihoon waiting for Soonyoung to leave and the other very obviously not understanding the social cues.

“Soonyoung. Leave.”

The demon laughed, “Jihoon, we’ve been over this, haven’t we? I can just-”

Jihoon suddenly cried out, his head falling into his hands once more, feeling as if someone were hitting it with the claw end of a hammer.

“Jihoon! What’s wrong?” Soonyoung asked frantically, reaching for the smaller. Jihoon could only groan in pain, his vision spotty.

Before Jihoon could stop him, Soonyoung was reaching into the shower under Jihoon to pick him up. His head in too much pain to protest, he let himself be lifted into the demon’s arms (who, by the way, didn’t seem to be having any trouble lifting the other). Soonyoung held Jihoon close to his chest as he made his way into the living room, setting Jihoon on the couch and fluffing one of the pillows before helping him lay down. Jihoon struggled to sit himself up, looking at Soonyoung like he was insane.

“I need clothes?”

“Oh.” 

“Well don’t just stand there, go get me some!” Jihoon shooed Soonyoung, his knees up and one hand desperately still trying to cover himself.

Soonyoung jumped and nodded, running to Jihoon’s room and searching frantically, having no idea where Jihoon kept his clothes. Eventually he came back with the oversized Billabong t-shirt that had been thrown next to the bed and a pair of daisy dukes with the Best Buy logo emblazoned on the butt (He’d recognized the logo).

Jihoon took the shirt gratefully, instantly throwing it on and letting it engulf him, but then he saw the shorts, “Soonyoung what the hell are those.”  
Soonyoung turned them around so Jihoon could see the logo, “You work here!” He pointed as if he were a child showing their parent their art project for school.

Jihoon let his head fall into his heads, but that caused a sharp jolt of pain and he really didn’t want to deal with Soonyoung anymore - it would just make the headache worse, “Soonyoung, please at least go get me some underwear. And put those monstrosities back where you found them.” 

Soonyoung dashed back down the hallway, actually slipping a bit on the hardwood floor in his socks but righting himself and digging through the drawers again to try and find boxers for Jihoon. He finally managed to find a pair that were a solid black color, though he also saw a pair with bright red lipstick marks patterned on them. He came back into the living room, tossing the boxers at Jihoon and waiting for him to readjust himself before sitting down on the couch beside him. 

“Does your head still hurt?” Soonyoung asked, voice soft and dripping with genuine worry for the tiny man in front of him. He felt _partially_ responsible for the accident. But also Jihoon didn’t have to be so sensitive. Maybe that would have helped. 

“As a matter of fact, it feels like an elephant is jumping up and down on my head, so it’s not exactly pleasant.” Soonyoung was pretty sure that he heard Jihoon mutter, ‘dick’, under his breath, but he ignored it. 

“Sorry. Why did you scream, anyways?”

“Because you walked into the _shower_! I was _naked_!”

Soonyoung laughed, “So? Why does that matter?”

“Jesus Christ, you can’t just go around and ambush naked people! It’s common human decency, you let people have their privacy when they’re naked.”

Soonyoung winked at Jihoon, except that his other eye half shut as well; he didn’t seem so good at human things, “But that’s why I had no idea. Common _human_ decency. Not a human.” 

“You are the most infuriating person I’ve ever met. And Kim Mingyu is my boss!” Jihoon’s voice rose in frustration.

Soonyoung chuckled (even though he had no idea who that was), and looked back to the takeout boxes on the counter. 

“Do you want food now? It might help your head. I don’t really know much about human cures for pain, you know, as a demon - it’s usually my job to _induce_ pain.”

“Yeah, well, it worked.” Jihoon scrunched his eyes shut, a hand hovering over the side of his head where a bump was sure to sprout. 

Soonyoung ignored the hint of guilt growing in his chest at Jihoon’s current state, instead standing and grabbing the bag of takeout. He brought it back to the couch, opening up one of the containers and seeing hundreds of little white pellets.

“Ooo, what are these?” he asked Jihoon, tipping the container forwards so that Jihoon could see, but accidentally spilling some of them out onto the couch cushions. 

“That is man’s greatest creation. White rice. And you’ve just wasted some of it.” Jihoon scowled as he took the container of rice from Soonyoung, grabbing a pair of chopsticks from the bag between them. Before he dug in, though, he asked Soonyoung to go put on a movie, forgetting that Soonyoung definitely did not know what the entire sentence meant, nor what he was supposed to go do now.

“Oh, yeah. Demon. Grab one of those boxes from under the big screen and open it.” Jihoon realized too late that he forgot to specify which movie Soonyoung should grab, because now the demon was standing in front of him way too excited about the cover art for Lady and the Tramp.

“This one looks really cute! It has dogs on it! Let’s do this one, Jihoon! Pleeease!” He was like a little kid in Target begging for the Barbie Dreamhouse.

Jihoon sighed, not wanting to give Soonyoung what he wanted, but also not wanting to admit that Lady and the Tramp was one of his favorite movies, “Fine, we’ll watch that one.”

“Yay!...How?”

Jihoon directed Soonyoung on how to take the DVD out of the case and put it in the DVD player. He made sure Soonyoung gave him the remote and didn’t try to do it himself. And now they were watching Lady and the Tramp.

Jihoon ate his rice quietly, forgetting that he had noodles as well until they were fairly far into the movie. When he finally turned to get them, he saw that Soonyoung had already opened them and was studying them intensely. Enjoying the movie too much to start a whole interaction with Soonyoung that would probably take way longer than it should just for his noodles, Jihoon chose to leave the other half of his dinner for now.

“Hey, Jihoon. Want some?” Soonyoung suddenly asked, Jihoon turning to see the other holding out a (single) chopstick with a (single) noodle on it.  
“Are you asking to feed me. Like a child.” It wasn’t a question, Jihoon knew that’s what was happening. 

“It’s just one, Jihoon. I’ll give you the whole box after that.” Soonyoung whined, pushing the chopstick closer to Jihoon’s lips. Jihoon scowled, but let Soonyoung put the noodle in his mouth before turning back to the movie. 

He began to slurp it into his mouth, but suddenly there was tension from the other end and before he knew it he was kissing Soonyoung. His eyes went wide and he spit what remained of the noodle out on the couch, desperately wiping his lips as if Soonyoung’s had been coated in poison.

“What the hell was that?!” he screeched, looking over to see Soonyoung grinning stupidly.

“It was just like in the movie!” 

Jihoon realized what Soonyoung was referring to. Did he just get Lady and the Tramped by a _demon_? 

Jihoon buried his head in his hands, “Soonyoung, you can’t just do that to someone. Follows the same basic principle as not looking at people when they’re naked. It’s not polite.”

Soonyoung groaned, “I’m a _demon_ , I’m not supposed to be polite! I’m supposed to be scary and upsetting!”

“You’re upsetting, that’s for sure.” Jihoon grumbled, taking his chopsticks and grabbing some noodles, sighing and shutting his eyes when he heard Soonyoung gasp at the movements. 

“How did you do that?”

“Here, like this.” Jihoon grabbed the discarded chopstick off of the couch cushion, taking the one that was still clutched in Soonyoung’s hand and holding them properly. He opened and closed them a few times, handing them to Soonyoung and helping the man, demon, whatever he was, position them in his fingers. Once Soonyoung had the right grip Jihoon helped him open and close them, half frustrated that Soonyoung didn’t know _anything_ remotely human, and half impressed at how quickly Soonyoung picked up on how to use the chopsticks. 

When Soonyoung finally began eating (correctly) with the chopsticks, Jihoon turned back to his meal as well, half watching the movie and half paying attention to his food. He was just grabbing another bite of noodles when he felt something on his nose, looking up to see Soonyoung pinching his nose shut with his chopsticks and grinning at him. 

“What the fuck?” Jihoon scrunched his nose up, brushing Soonyoung’s chopsticks off with a hand. Soonyoung just chuckled, turning his attention back to the movie.

Jihoon soon began feeling full, setting aside the takeout containers and reclining on the couch. His head still hurt like a bitch, but hopefully it would get better before he had to go back to work. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, tried to fight sleep as best as he could, but the combination of his headache, being full, and the movie softly playing in the background slowly lulled him to sleep.

Suddenly he jolted awake to his vision being blocked out, along with both of his airways. He had no idea what was happening. Was he being kidnapped? Attacked? Killed? Taken to a secondary location? Using all of his strength, he pushed whatever was on top of him off and to the floor, hearing a scream as he blinked at the light to see Soonyoung now flat on the floor, pouting. 

“I just wanted a hug…”

“Soonyoung, I couldn’t _breathe_!” Jihoon shouted incredulously, arms thrown out.

“What’s that?” Soonyoung asked, head tilted like a dog hearing the word treat.

“Jesus christ.” Jihoon didn’t answer the question, getting up off the couch and instantly falling back down in pain, crying out.

“Jihoon!” Soonyoung stood up and rushed to Jihoon’s side, placing a hand on the other’s tummy. 

“Okay, Soonyoung, this is the only time I will ever ask this but can you please take me to my bed and then leave me there?”

Jihoon instantly regretted his request when he watched Soonyoung’s face break into the widest grin he’d seen yet, “Of course!” 

Soonyoung eagerly scooped Jihoon up, the smaller man’s head pounding slightly as Sooyoung jostled him around. He hated every second of Sooyoung carrying him to his bedroom, mumbling a thank you and shooing Soonyoung away when he was securely tucked into bed. The demon didn’t know what _breathing_ was, but he knew how to tuck Jihoon in. Interesting. 

Soonyoung left the room as per Jihoon’s request, but didn’t really know what to do with himself, so he just resigned to sit on the floor outside of the door in wait. 

Demons didn’t need to sleep. They could, but they didn’t need to. It was only after ten minutes of nonstop movement and tossing and turning that Soonyoung could hear from inside the bedroom that he stood, went _back_ inside, and flicked on the light.

“Are you okay? You’re moving a lot.” 

Jihoon glared at Soonyoung, “I’m fine. Turn off the light, I need to sleep.”

“Fine.” Soonyoung turned the light back off, but instead of leaving and shutting the door, he turned and crawled into the bed beside Jihoon, sliding under the covers.

“Soonyoung! What the fuck!”

\--

Soonyoung, not needing to sleep, was up before Jihoon in the morning, cracking the smaller’s door open slightly to check that he was still asleep. He realized that Jihoon’s head probably still hurt, and how was he going to work with a super bad headache? He should tell Jihoon’s boss that Jihoon wasn’t going to come to work today.

He creeped quietly into Jihoon’s room, taking Jihoon’s new iPhone eleven - company provided, Jihoon was broke - from his side table. It was locked, though. Jihoon was always able to open it just by looking at it, so maybe Jihoon had to look at it? He held the phone in front of Jihoon’s sleeping face and wouldn’t you know it but the phone unlocked.

Thankfully, the application for ‘phone’ was bright green and had a picture of a phone on it, so Soonyoung was easily able to find it. He scrolled through Jihoon’s contacts, looking for one labeled boss, but none of them matched. That’s when he remembered Jihoon mentioning a name earlier. What was it? Kim...Minwoo? Minsu? Mingyu! There it was. He touched the call button and put the phone to his ear, as he’d seen Jihoon do before.

There was a ringing noise that Soonyoung deemed too loud to be near a sleeping Jihoon, so he snuck back out of the room, and just as he was closing the door, a voice came over the other end.

“Hey, Jihoon. What’s up?”

Soonyoung panicked, “Um, yes, this is Jihoon.”

“Uhhh…is everything okay, Jihoon? You sound off.”

“Um, yeah, I’m...sick.” There was a pause before Soonyoung let out a very fake cough. 

“Oookaay...well maybe you should stay home, then.”

“Yes! I’ll stay home. Sounds good. Thank you!” Soonyoung quickly hung up, stabbing at the red end call button multiple times just to make sure.  
He made his way back into Jihoon’s room, tossing the phone on the nightstand and sliding into the bed. 

\--

Jihoon felt himself waking up, scrunching himself tighter into a ball of blankets. There was a pocket of warmth beside him, which he snuggled closer to - it felt like a pile of pillows-

Jihoon only had two pillows. So what was he snuggling against? His eyes shot open, and he quickly realized that he was face-first in someone’s chest. There was only one person that could be laying in his bed. At least, he hoped it was the person he thought it was, because if it wasn’t there was a serious problem.

“SOONYOUNG.” Jihoon sat up faster than he’d ever gotten up in the morning, violently kicking at the other body on his bed, the force necessary for that pushing him backwards slightly.

“Hey!” Soonyoung shouted as Jihoon’s foot connected with his thigh, pushing him off the bed and onto the floor. As he was under the blankets, though, they came with him - and so did Jihoon. Jihoon screeched as he was unwillingly yanked across and off his bed, squeezing his eyes shut and bracing himself for impact - with either the floor or Soonyoung. 

It was Soonyoung.

There was a loud _'oof'_ from below him, and Jihoon waited a moment before opening his eyes slowly, terrified of what he’d be faced with. Unfortunately, right in front of him, less than an inch away, was Soonyoung’s face.

“Nope!” Jihoon shouted, pushing off of Soonyoung’s shoulders to move up and away. In the process of trying to stand, though, his knee ended up directly between Soonyoung’s legs, the other shouting out in pain and shooting up into a seated position, which _then_ resulted in his chest colliding with the top of Jihoon’s head, Jihoon’s balance being thrown off, and Jihoon toppling over backwards, arms swinging, landing headfirst, fortunately onto the pile of _all_ his blankets now on the floor.

Jihoon groaned in pain, a hand reaching for the definitely forming (second) bruise on the back of his head as he laid on the floor.

“Jihoon! Are you okay?” Soonyoung asked frantically, reaching for Jihoon’s arm.

“I am going to fucking. Murder you.” 

Soonyoung couldn’t help his laughter, “You can’t kill a demon, silly.”

“Oh, shut UP.” Jihoon rolled onto his side, clutching his now pounding head. It didn’t help that he now had a bruise on both the front and back. Plus the frustration migraine Soonyoung had been giving him for the past few days was still killing him. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Get off of me, Soonyoung.”

“I just want to help.”

“Help?! This is all you trying to _help_ me?!” Jihoon shouted through his arms, though he moved them slightly so he could glare angrily at the demon.

“I’m not a human, okay? I don’t know how to help you like a human would, I can only do what I can, and by nature I’m supposed to be an awful person! I’m trying my best!” 

Jihoon didn’t reply, willing his glare to stab Soonyoung.

“I did call you in sick from work, though!”

Jihoon dropped his head back onto the blankets in defeat.

\--

Mingyu held tightly on to the takeout bag he had brought with him for Jihoon. He tried his best to make sure all of his employees were happy (and would give him a good review when the higher ups asked). That was the reason he’d _hand-embroidered_ five pairs of daisy dukes with the Best Buy logo. And one pair for himself, with the QR code to their website on the back pocket, so that he could promote their business by just walking around. He considered himself a pretty forward-thinking businessman. The only person that ever seemed to wear the shorts, though, was Seungkwan.

Halfway down the hall, he heard a scream emanate from what he could’ve sworn was Jihoon’s apartment. He couldn’t really tell what kind of scream it was, so he kept going, curiosity peaked. Knocking twice, his mind wandered to all the possible reasons Jihoon - or someone else in the apartment, oh that was a new idea. What if there was someone else in the apartment. And why? Was he in a relationship? Was it a drug dealer? Was Jihoon on drugs? Did he forget to pay? 

Before Mingyu’s thoughts could fully collapse into panic, though, the door opened to a very disheveled Jihoon, with a bruise blooming visibly through the strands of his messy hair, a purple splotch on the side of his forehead. Mingyu began worrying for Jihoon’s safety, wondering if there was possibly someone holding him hostage, but then his mind took him somewhere even worse.

_What if it was a sex thing?!_

He wasn’t exactly hip, or cool, but he definitely didn’t think that bruising people’s foreheads was cool? Weren’t hickeys supposed to go on your neck?

But looking Jihoon up and down, the bruise, his messy, rumpled clothes, his unruly hair, it began looking a lot more like a sex thing. Did he really call out of work to have sex?

“Oh, hey, Mingyu.” Jihoon said, sounding vaguely upset. Mingyu was beginning to think he definitely interrupted something.

“Um, hey, Jihoon. I..brought you..soup?” Mingyu held the bag out, his mind still racing.

Jihoon looked surprised, “Oh, thanks.” he took the plastic bag, but suddenly he turned around and shouted in the direction of his bedroom, “I told you to stay in my room!”

Mingyu’s mind took off again. What the _fuck_ was happening. This sounded more like Jihoon was the drug dealer. Or the one initiating the sex? Mingyu refused to let his mind wander further into that theory. 

“Did you call in sick to have sex? Or do drugs? Or...both?” Mingyu blurted out, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Jihoon’s brow furrowed, his head reeling back slightly at the accusation, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Are you even sick?”

“What the hell, Mingyu, of course I’m sick.”

“You don’t look sick.”

“Well I’m sorry I’m naturally very pale.”

“You don’t sound sick either.”

“Mingyu, I’ll be in tomorrow, sick or not, is that good enough for you?”

Mingyu was slightly offended. How _dare_ Jihoon act like Mingyu wasn’t his friend. Mingyu had baked him a six-layer birthday cake, for four years in a row, hand-frosted it to look like Jihoon’s face, and written around the sides, _‘Happy Birthday Bilbo'_. And Jihoon pretended like they didn’t even like each other! He even invited Jihoon on a week-long river cruise that he’d gotten free tickets for in the office holiday raffle! Jihoon had even caught a blue catfish! It had been 85 pounds, and technically he hadn’t caught it _legally_ , and it had added so much weight to their carry-on bags that they had needed to pay fifty dollars extra, and Jihoon’s bag still, to this day, smelled like fish, but he caught it at least! And none of that would have been possible without Mingyu.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Mingyu said in the pettiest voice he could muster, “And you can keep the soup.” the soup was already in Jihoon’s hands, and it was obvious he just didn’t want to grab it back and risk it spilling.

“Have fun doing drugs and sex!” He shouted over his shoulder as he stomped away.

“Mingyu! Hey!” Jihoon pleaded slightly, realizing he’d definitely not helped his case, “Thank you…” he said quietly, knowing Mingyu didn’t hear him.

\--  
It took a lot of self control for Jihoon not to slam the door in frustration before he put the soup down and whirled around to face Soonyoung, who had been directly behind him the entire time Mingyu was at the door.

“What were you thinking?!”

“Jihoon, I don’t know how many times I have to remind you of this, but I am a demon. My literal _job description_ is to make your life terrible. Can’t you tell I’m fighting instinct to be somewhat nice to you? This is nothing!”

Jihoon only glared, picking up the soup and taking it to the couch, where he plopped down and turned on the TV to whatever random channel he’d last been watching. 

“So, Jonathan, what’s the plan?” the voice of Drew Scott sounded from HGTV.

Jihoon groaned, “Never let Jonathan make the plan, Drew!”

\--

The next day, as he’d promised, Jihoon went to work. His head was still killing him, but his relationship with Mingyu was now on the rocks, and he didn’t want to risk anything.

Unfortunately, Soonyoung wasn’t helping anything. 

“What are you doing at work today? What do you have to do? Can you show me around the office? Where’s your stapler?” 

“Soonyoung, I swear to God if you don’t shut up I’m going to staple you to a chair.”

“Oh, Jihoon. You decided to come in today.” Mingyu sauntered up to Jihoon’s cubicle, glancing at the shorter out of the corner of his eye. 

Jihoon sighed, “Listen, Mingyu, I’m sorry about yesterday. I was sick, and defensive, and generally frustrated with _someone_.” Jihoon glared at Soonyoung out of the corner of his eye; Soonyoung smiled and waved.

“Uh huh, sure,” Mingyu narrowed his eyes at Jihoon, pivoting to walk away, “You’re on thin ice, Jihoon.”

Jihoon slumped in his chair in defeat, “This is all your fault.” he mumbled in Soonyoung’s general direction. There was a moment of silence before Jihoon swiveled back to face his desk, getting back to work. 

Soonyoung saw, out of the corner of his eye, the stapler that Jihoon had tossed haphazardly on the desk after chucking it at Soonyoung the other day. He grinned to himself, silently grabbing the contraption and unhinging it so that he could enact his plan.

“Hey Jihoon?”

Jihoon let out a quiet hum of acknowledgement before Soonyoung spoke again.

“When Mingyu came by yesterday, what did he think was happening?”

“Soonyoung, I swear to God, if you try anything-”

“Wrong! The answer was SEX!” Soonyoung then proceeded to slam the stapler down next to Jihoon’s leg, catching the edge of his pants and attaching them to the chair. Jihoon screamed (“You could’ve impaled my leg!”) and moved to grab the stapler from the demon, but Soonyoung was too fast, pressing more staples into Jihoon’s pants and the seat of the chair. 

Finally, through a flurry of limbs, Jihoon was able to grab the stapler from Soonyoung - but he was officially stapled to his chair.

“You fucking idiot! I’m going to kill you!” He screeched, chucking the stapler as hard as he could in Soonyoung’s general direction. Unfortunately, because the swivel chair was still in motion from all the action, Jihoon’s balance was thrown off and the stapler flew over the wall of his cubicle, arcing across the office.

Jihoon’s eyes widened and he struggled to stand in order to see where the stapler had landed, which only resulted in the chair coming up off the ground with him. Ignoring how stupid he must look, he grasped the edge of his cubicle and lifted himself onto his tippy toes to see over. He watched in dread as the stapler collided directly with the back of his coworker Wonwoo’s head.

Wonwoo let out a shout of pain, clutching at the back of his head as he glanced over his shoulder to see the top of Jihoon’s head peeking over the cubicle wall. 

Jihoon braced himself for a reaction, but Wonwoo merely rolled his eyes and turned back to what he was working on.

Jihoon let out a breath of relief, letting himself and the chair fall back to the ground.

“WONWOO!” Jihoon’s head shot up, eyes widening at the sound of his boss’s voice. Maybe the person who actually got hurt didn’t care, but anytime anything involved Wonwoo, Mingyu was fully invested.

Jihoon tried to shrink himself into his cubicle, getting as close to his computer as he could and pretending to be in the middle of something. He prayed Wonwoo wouldn’t tell Mingyu what happened.

“JIHOON.” 

Fuck.

Jihoon winced and turned around slowly, pants still securely stapled to the chair. Mingyu stormed into the cubicle, unknowingly standing _directly_ beside Soonyoung, a shit-eating grin on the demon’s face. 

“What the hell was that?”

“Mingyu, I swear, it wasn’t me-”

“Not you?!”

“Okay, so I threw the stapler, but not _at_ Wonwoo!”

“It hit him in the head!”

“I wasn’t aiming for his head!”

“What were you aiming for then?!”

Jihoon spluttered, knowing that if he said he was aiming for the _demon_ that was _torturing_ him there would be no coming back. 

“I can’t believe you, Jihoon. You’ve been acting so terribly for the past week, and now you _hit_ Wonwoo in the _head_ with a _stapler_?”

Mingyu kept talking, but Jihoon wasn’t paying attention anymore, because Soonyoung was laughing uncontrollably, clutching his stomach. Jihoon was trying to resist yelling at him, but it was getting harder and harder when all he could hear was that goddamn cackle.

Finally it got to be too much, and _right_ in the middle of Mingyu’s lecture on his _‘attitude’_ , he screamed, “Oh my god, stop it!”

_“Excuse you?”_

Panic quickly set in, “No, no, Mingyu I wasn’t talking to you I was talking to- to-” Jihoon struggled to crawl out of the hole he’d dug for himself.

“Jihoon, you couldn’t have been talking to anyone else, I’m the only one here. I’ve had it with your-”

“Fucking expose yourself, asshole!” Jihoon screeched at Soonyoung, which to Mingyu, looked very much like Jihoon was just screaming at the air _next_ to him.

“Jihoon! That is highly inappropriate in the workplace! I have no choice.”

Jihoon knew exactly where this was going, but he had no idea how to stop it-

“Ooo, somebody’s getting fired~” 

“SOONYOUNG.” Jihoon screeched at the demon (as seen by Mingyu - empty space).

Mingyu did a double take, staring with confusion at Jihoon, then peering cautiously at the air beside him. He, of course, saw nothing.

“Jihoon, what the fuck?”

“I.. I don’t know how to explain this, but there’s- he’s-” Jihoon sighed, giving up and hanging his head. He knew that any sort of attempt at an explanation would only end in Mingyu thinking he was insane, and there was no hope of him keeping his job after this whole fiasco. 

“Jihoon, I don’t know what’s going on with you, if it’s some weird, kinky relationship, some bad food, or drugs, but whatever it is, I don’t think your behavior is a good representation of our company, and I’m unfortunately going to have to let you go.” 

Jihoon had no witty comeback, no argument, he knew this was it. He nodded silently, moving to go collect his things and leave, and realizing that he was still stapled to the chair. He sighed, wheeling the chair over to the desk awkwardly and doing his best to gather all his things in his lap.

“Jihoon, just stand up.” Mingyu commented. 

Jihoon stared up at him sadly, “I’m stapled to the chair.” 

Mingyu looked closer at Jihoon, seeing that he was, in fact, stapled to the chair. Mingyu sighed, burying his head in his hands as Soonyoung cackled at Jihoon’s misfortune. At this point, though, Jihoon was too frustrated and upset to even yell at the demon. Mingyu walked away, leaving Jihoon to stare down at the pile of stuff in his lap sadly.

Soonyoung watched as Mingyu left the cubicle, turning back to face Jihoon who had finally managed to round up all of his possessions and had them securely piled up on his lap. Soonyoung grinned, feeling an idea creep up on him. He grabbed the back of Jihoon’s swivel chair, turning it and pushing the smaller out of his old cubicle while still stapled to the chair.

There was no protest as the demon wheeled the newly-fired employee through the office and towards the exit. There were definitely heads turning, though.

“Um, Jihoon, how are you doing that?”

“Jihoon, are you okay? What’s happening?”

“What the hell is going on?” 

Jihoon didn’t respond to any of his ex-coworker’s incredulous statements, keeping his head down and his eyes locked on the pile of stuff in his lap as he was slowly wheeled out to the parking lot. Soonyoung peered around the back of the chair, trying to catch a glimpse of Jihoon’s face to see his reaction - but there wasn’t one. Jihoon’s face was still downturned, eyes devoid of emotion as he frowned slightly, more of a resting face than an actual expression. Soonyoung had never seen Jihoon without absolute _rage_ in his eyes after Soonyoung messed with him. That look was what kept Soonyoung going. This was scarier than when he yelled. 

“Jihoon?” Soonyoung’s voice was soft, seeing how scarily indifferent Jihoon seemed to be, but the demon got no answer. He’d heard of something like this before - a complete calm before a massive bout of rage. 

Even once they reached the car, Jihoon made no move to try and get up from the chair. He just continued to stare into nothing. After a few moments, unsure what to do at first, Soonyoung decided the only option was to rip Jihoon’s pants off. He reached for Jihoon’s legs, but suddenly there was a hand on his chest, stopping him. He looked up to meet Jihoon’s eyes, but the other was still staring in the same direction he’d been since they left the office. 

“Jihoon, you’re still stuck in the chair. I have to get your pants off.”

Jihoon just shook his head, reaching down and silently began pulling the staples out one by one - it ruined his nails, but it was better than whatever Soonyoung had planned.

The demon watched as Jihoon slowly removed himself from the swivel chair, looking as if it were physically draining to stand and move his body into the driver’s seat.

Soonyoung tentatively opened the passenger’s side door, sliding in and strapping himself in. Jihoon continued to stare straight ahead, eyes seemingly focused on the seam of the fabric covering the wheel.

A good minute passed before Soonyoung felt the need to say something: “Hey, Jihoon…?”

Instead of replying, Jihoon switched gears and stepped on the gas pedal harshly, tires screeching as he backed out of his spot and sped through the parking lot.

Soonyoung’s hand instinctively went to grip at the handle above the door, a soft gasp emitted when Jihoon sped away. 

The car ride was tense and Jihoon was completely silent, unresponsive to each quiet call of his name that came from Soonyoung. 

The time passed slowly and awkwardly; Soonyoung had long since given up on getting Jihoon to talk to him. Halfway through, Soonyoung heard a light sniffle from the driver’s side, whipping his head around to see tears streaming down Jihoon’s cheeks.

Soonyoung wasn’t sure what to say, staring at the side of Jihoon’s face as he cried for the remainder of the drive. He could tell Jihoon was getting increasingly upset and frustrated with him, but he truly had no idea how to fix it, so he continued to just stare. 

The second Jihoon had parked in front of his apartment building, he got out of the car, slamming the door and locking it. He didn’t even look at Soonyoung before storming into the building, heading for the stairs instead of the elevator like he normally would. He took them two at a time (somehow), though two steps of his were basically one of Soonyoung’s, so they were at the same pace.

When they reached Jihoon’s apartment the shorter man jammed his keys into the lock, throwing the door open and tossing his keys blindly into the apartment. They smacked against the wall with an ear-piercing scratch. He stepped in, not giving Soonyoung enough room to get inside before he was slamming the door shut again, but Soonyoung merely teleported through the door. 

“Just _stop_!” Jihoon screamed, whirling on Soonyoung violently, “Leave me alone! Haven’t you ruined enough?!”

Soonyoung’s eyes blew wide, his mouth hanging open slightly as he stepped away, his back hitting the door, “Why do you even care that much anyways?”

“Why do I _care_?! I _care_ because that was the first _actual_ job I was able to get! I _care_ because that was my only source of income! I _care_ because Mingyu was my _friend_! I care because in a matter of _weeks_ you’ve been able to fuck up my entire life! That’s why I _care_ , okay!?”

“But.. But you can just find a new job! Make new friends!” Soonyoung didn’t know much about human life, but if he’d done it once he could do it again, right?

“Making friends isn’t that easy for me, okay? And neither is finding a job! I’m not someone that a lot of people want to be friends with! Mingyu wasn’t perfect, but he was literally all I had!” 

“But...what about me?” Soonyoung asked, “I watched movies with you! I ate actual food with you! I saved your life!”

“You think you’re my _friend_? You didn’t save my life, you ruined it!” Jihoon stormed off, pulling at his hair in frustration, to his couch, grabbing his laptop and hurriedly opening up a Google search.

Misspelling words in his rage, Jihoon searched _sumon santa wiikhow_.

Soonyoung watched in awe at how fast the smaller moved, grabbing all the candles he could find and pushing his coffee table out of the way to make a circle on his living room floor.

“What are you doing?” Soonyoung asked warily, concerned for the younger.

“Getting rid of _you_.” Jihoon spat, shakily rummaging through his kitchen drawers for a lighter and settling on matches instead.

“Jihoon, you can’t just get rid of me, I’m a demon.” Soonyoung chuckled, but a hint of nervousness crept in.

“Watch me.” Jihoon said sharply, tear tracks stiff on his cheeks, amplified by the shadows now cast across his skin from the candles. He closed all the curtains, plunging the room into darkness, the only light coming from the burning circle of candles. 

Soonyoung’s nerves only grew as he watched Jihoon crouch next to the candles in the middle of his studio apartment. Jihoon’s lips were moving; he was murmuring something, but Soonyoung couldn’t hear what. He moved closer to hear, but Jihoon had stopped by the time he got to the other’s side. Jihoon ignored Soonyoung with alarming efficiency, so Soonyoung sighed and moved forwards. He began snuffing the candles with the tips of his fingers, ignoring Jihoon’s shouts of protest.

“You’re gonna burn your apartment down.” 

“Oh, like you didn’t try that once already.”

Soonyoung sighed like a father disappointed in their child, “Jihoon, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but whatever it is, I don’t know how you think it’s going to get rid of me. I’m a demon - I’m not going anywhere I don’t want to be.”

Before Jihoon had a chance to snap back, there was a sudden loud crack, as if thunder had struck inside the apartment. The two boys screamed, Jihoon falling backwards from his crouch onto his ass. Suddenly, Soonyoung was scooping Jihoon off of the floor into his arms, “I caught you, don’t worry!”

“Soonyoung, I wasn’t even a foot off the ground, I was fine.”

“Your height is nothing to be ashamed of, Jihoon.” 

Standing before the two boys was a seemingly normal man in all black with platinum blonde hair reaching just over his eyes. He seemed caught off guard, confused, his hair messy and his hands raised as if they’d been doing something just a moment ago. 

“What the fuck?” 

Soonyoung’s eyes widened and his arms fell to his sides, consequently letting Jihoon tumble to the carpet. Jihoon yelped, hitting the floor harshly.  
“Jeonghan! What are you doing here?”

“That’s a very good question, Soonyoung. What the hell am I doing here.”

From the floor, Jihoon snorted, making some joke about Satan saying what the hell. The others in the room snapped out of their trance, heads tilting downwards to look at the boy on the floor. Jihoon blushed slightly, letting Soonyoung tug him up off the floor, though he shook him off after a glance at fucking _Satan_ who was glaring between the two suspiciously.

“Hi there, Mr. Satan, I’m Jihoon. Could you kindly take your demon back, please? I want a refund on my life.”

Jeonghan continued to look between Jihoon and Soonyoung, noticing the demon’s frown and the hope in Jihoon’s eyes. 

“Did you...summon me - _Satan_ \- just to get rid of him?” Jeonghan pointed at Soonyoung, who looked like he’d been personally attacked.

“Yes, sir, that is correct now please remove him from my apartment. He's been living here for weeks and does not pay rent, and now because of him I can’t either.”

Jeonghan’s eyes widened and he looked back at Soonyoung, “Wow, I didn’t think you had it in you! Nice work!”

“ _Excuse_ me?!” Jihoon cut off Soonyoung’s response, stomping towards Jeonghan, “This son of a bitch better be out of my house by midnight or you bet I’ll be praying tonight and I don’t think God is gonna like what I have to say about you.”

Jeonghan completely ignored Jihoon, not even glancing his direction, instead talking only to Soonyoung, “Wow, you were right, he is worthy of a demon. I thought you were begging to be assigned to him just because you _liked_ him.”

Jihoon swung around to face Soonyoung, a vein almost popping on his forehead from how angry he was, “You _asked_ to be here?!”

“Jihoon, I didn’t mean to-”

“No! Don’t even try and come up with an excuse, you’ve been ruining my life on _purpose_!”

“Well, I am a demon, so-”

“Go to hell!”

“You should come sometime, you can meet my friends!”

Jihoon was speechless, jaw locked in anger at how little Soonyoung seemed to be affected by what was going on. All he wanted was his life back, and this was not going as planned.

“Okay, well, seems everything is going well here, I think I’m gonna head back home now.” Jeonghan said from across the room, straightening his shirt out from where it had been ruffled slightly in the chaos. 

Jihoon whirled around again and surged forwards, a cry of protest falling from his lips, but Jeonghan was already gone. Jihoon’s fingers closed around nothing, thin air, and he let the momentum from the lunge bring him to the floor, head hanging as he realized his only hope of getting rid of Soonyoung had just literally slipped through his fingers.

“There. I yelled at your boss, you yelled at mine. We’re even! So what’s for dinner?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Jihoon. Jihoon.” a breathy whisper tickled Jihoon’s ear and he groggily opened his eyes, already moving to get out of bed because he knew it was Soonyoung about to tell him he’d started a small fire or something like that.

“Jihoon, I think something’s wrong with the ninja.”

“The ninja?” Jihoon paused; that was a new one.

“Yeah, I put eggs in it and then it made a weird noise and got really hot so I poured water on it and then it made more weird noises and hurt my hand.” Jihoon looked down at Soonyoung’s hand; his index finger had what looked to be an electrical burn.

Oh. The Ninja.

Jihoon sighed, pushing his blankets back and swinging his legs out of bed. He walked into the kitchen, seeing his poor blender covered in a mixture of eggshells, raw egg, and water. It was also smoking. That was a concern. Jihoon grabbed a spatula from one of his drawers, quickly swinging at the wire to pull the plug out of the wall. Once it was unplugged, he stood back with his hands on his hips and just stared at the mess. He felt Soonyoung come up behind him, crouching down to whisper in his ear:

“Is it broken?”

\--

“Soonyoung, I’m heading to the grocery store. Please for the love of God don’t destroy my apartment.”

“Wait, Jihoon! Can I come?” Soonyoung teleported to Jihoon’s side like a magical puppy, pleading eyes and all.

“I mean,” Jihoon weighed his options; leave Soonyoung alone in his home for thirty minutes, or take him along to the grocery store. Both would probably result in thousands of dollars in property damage. But he wouldn’t have to pay for the property damage to the store because it would look like an invisible force was destroying it. So it was settled, “I guess you can come. If you really want to.”

Soonyoung cheered, attempting to hug Jihoon, but the shorter shoved the demon off with both hands, his keys unfortunately in one, managing to stab Soonyoung in the chest. Fortunately, being a demon, Soonyoung was fine, though he couldn’t resist playfully acting like it was super painful just to annoy Jihoon. To Soonyoung’s surprise, Jihoon apologized, looking genuinely afraid that he’d just impaled his demon.

Upon their arrival at the store, Jihoon realized he had a lot of power in his hands with a demon only visible to him essentially at his command. And an oblivious one, too. He put Soonyoung at the controls of the shopping cart, instructing him to follow Jihoon down the aisles at a distance far enough back that it was clear to anyone looking at them that the cart was just following Jihoon on its own.

Jihoon was in the middle of reaching for a can of beans that was perched securely on the top shelf when he felt someone run directly into him, knocking him off balance slightly. Jihoon would have hit the ground were it not for Soonyoung catching him just before he did, lifting him back upright and onto his feet. He couldn’t help but notice that it didn’t bother him all that much.

Jihoon turned to the end of the aisle, meeting eyes with Seungcheol, an old ex-boyfriend of his. If you could even have called them boyfriends. Their relationship was awkward at best, faking love when their parents were around to prove that Jihoon wasn’t lonely. It kept his mom happy, and Seungcheol’s parents were just happy their son had someone to spend time with outside of the house. They were much better off as friends; it was less awkward and they weren’t forced to be together all the time.

“Ah, hi Jihoon! Looks like they just let anyone in here, huh?” Seungcheol grinned, elbowing Jihoon playfully.

“Well, yeah. It’s an Albertsons.” Jihoon deadpanned, having none of Seungcheol’s middle class fancy bullshit.

Seungcheol’s smile died down rather quickly after that, his brain working furiously to come up with something else to say. In the silence, he glanced up to watch in progressively greater awe as the can of beans Jihoon was just reaching for a few seconds ago floated down from the top shelf and nudged against Jihoon’s hand. Jihoon looked down and his eyes widened, but he reacted quickly, grabbing the can and whipping his head back up to meet Seungcheol’s eyes.

“Sorry, that was just, uh,” Jihoon tried coming up with something as fast as he could, “Beans…”

“Uh, what just-”

“I mean not to get political or anything,” the words flew out of Jihoon’s mouth, the first thought that came to his head, “But what are beans?”

Soonyoung had never known what that word meant; political! He grinned, happy to know that his knowledge of human customs was expanding. Politics meant beans, interesting.

Seungcheol spluttered, wondering whether it was appropriate to laugh or if he was supposed to take Jihoon seriously. He had dated that man for almost a year, and nothing that weird had ever come out of his mouth.

“Do you guys talk about politics often?” Soonyoung asked, but Jihoon ignored him, focused on Seungcheol, who replied to Jihoon’s previous question so soon after Soonyoung had spoken that it was obvious he hadn’t heard. Furrowing his brow, Soonyoung tried again, leaning closer to Jihoon so that his mouth was closer to the man’s ear. Jihoon would have to hear him from there. He even raised his voice slightly so that he was basically shouting. It was a good plan. Jihoon winced, desperately trying to maintain a straight face and ignore the demon.

“Hey, are you okay?” Seungcheol interrupted his own sentence to ask.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just something in my eye.” Jihoon made up an excuse.

Soonyoung leaned forwards, failing to see anything in Jihoon’s eye from that angle. He sighed, grabbing the man’s cheeks and turning Jihoon’s head towards him, angling it up slightly so that he could see better.

“Jihoon, there’s nothing in your eye, are you sure you felt something in there?” Soonyoung was inches from Jihoon’s face, his nose nearly touching Jihoon’s own. Jihoon blushed scarlet, shaking his head and tearing it out of Soonyoung’s grip.

Seungcheol squinted in confusion, concerned for his friend, “Jihoon, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m perfectly fine.” Jihoon attempted to kick at Soonyoung’s shin discreetly, but only succeeded in slamming his toes into the shopping cart, sending it spinning down the aisle. Jihoon’s eyes widened, knowing he definitely looked insane at this point.

“Maybe you should come back to my place and I can get you some soup or something?” Seungcheol reached a hand out for Jihoon’s shoulder, when suddenly it was like a baseball bat had slammed down on his forearm, knocking his arm away from Jihoon, “Ow! What the hell?”

Jihoon gasped, “Uh, sorry, I don’t know what that was.”

“That was you?”

“Uh...yes?”

Suddenly there was an arm around Jihoon’s waist and he’d been lifted off the ground, air rushing past him as he was dragged down the aisle in Soonyoung’s hold. He suppressed a scream, gaze still locked with Seungcheol’s, both of their eyes wide in shock.

“Jihoon!”

In a last ditch effort to fix anything that just happened, Jihoon shouted down the aisle, “HEELYS!”

\--

Before the car door had even shut behind Soonyoung, Jihoon was raising his voice, “What the hell was that?!”

“What was what?” Soonyoung was still holding the can of beans that they’d bought, reading the back of the label to try and find out more about politics.

“You made me look possessed!” Jihoon screamed, burying his head in his hands above the steering wheel.

“But Jihoon, you kinda are.”

Jihoon snapped his head up to glare at Soonyoung, “I wish I wasn’t.”

Soonyoung frowned, turning his gaze back down to the can of politics in his hand.

Was ‘Baked’ the 45th president? Or was it ‘Pinto’?

\--

Jihoon didn’t speak to Soonyoung the rest of the way home, and continued to give the demon the cold shoulder until that evening, when he walked into the living room to see Soonyoung picking sadly through a leftover takeout box of noodles. Jihoon felt something in his chest, knowing, unfortunately, that it was pity and sympathy. The poor demon was just doing his job, trying his best.

“Hey, Soonyoung.” Jihoon said quietly, plopping down carefully on the couch.

“Do you remember?” Soonyoung asked, still looking down at the box of noodles.

“Huh?” Jihoon tilted his head in confusion, “Remember what?”

Soonyoung sighed, “Of course you don’t.”

“Soonyoung, what are you talking about? You need to give me details if you want me to know what you’re asking about. Maybe I do remember.”

There was a moment of silence where Soonyoung seemed to be considering the comment, “When we watched that movie and you showed me what these long things are.”

“Soonyoung that was like three weeks ago, of course I remember.”

“Well I’m sorry I like remembering the times you’re actually nice to me. You know, there’s not too much else for me to talk about. You’re literally the only person I can talk to.”

Jihoon was taken aback, surprised at the demon’s emotional capabilities. He hadn’t ever considered how Soonyoung was feeling. Though he hadn’t really wanted to considering Soonyoung had come in and destroyed his life. Jihoon hated that he felt sympathy for the demon, but he knew he could’ve maybe been a little more understanding. It was Soonyoung’s job. And the whole demon thing probably made it hard for him to not destroy Jihoon’s life.

“Hey man,” Jihoon sighed, hating that his next sentence would make it so that he was basically obligated to talk to Soonyoung, “I’m only mean to you because you’re constantly wrecking different parts of my life. First my job, then my friendships, then my past love life, and honestly I don’t know when it’s gonna stop. But if it doesn’t stop now I think I’m gonna go insane, so why don’t I teach you to act human. So that even if no one else can see you, you’re not messing things up.”

Soonyoung’s gaze shot to Jihoon’s, “You would do that for me?”

Jihoon blushed, “Not for you! For me. So that I can start putting my life back together. There’s no way in hell,” Soonyoung giggled but Jihoon chose to ignore it, “That I’m leaving you here alone if I find another job, so you have to not throw staplers at anyone anymore. I need to teach you proper behaviour around civilized human beings.”

“But Jihoooon,” Soonyoung whined, “I’m not a civilized human. I’m a demon! You can’t restrict me like that! Humans are so boring. I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to actually be one.”

Jihoon leveled a glare at the demon, who stubbornly refused to take back what he said.

“Soonyoung if you don’t want me summoning Satan, er, Jeonghan, again, then I’d highly recommend you let me do this.”

Soonyoung sighed, weighing the options in his head, “Can I still throw staplers at you when we’re alone?” Soonyoung wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“No!”

\--

Over the course of the next few weeks, Jihoon spent all of his free, unemployed time teaching Soonyoung how to be a civilized human. It was harder than he’d expected. He’d had to purchase three new lightbulbs in the past three days. He wasn’t even sure how Soonyoung was managing to break them, considering Jihoon had been teaching him how to use the microwave.

Jihoon realized that he’d finally have to teach Soonyoung that staplers weren’t actually used for sex if he wanted to maintain a steady job, but he was going to miss lying to the demon about it. It had been kind of fun. Aside from the whole throwing it at him at work part, that is.

Jihoon grabbed the stapler that he had from the box of his stuff from work that he still hadn’t gotten around to unpacking, sitting Soonyoung down on the couch and holding it out to show the demon what was in his hands.

Soonyoung’s eyes widened, “Are we having sex? Is that really what humans do all the time?”

“No! We’re not having sex, that’s not what these are for.”

“What?! You told me-”

“I know!” Jihoon really didn’t know how to explain to the demon that he was so fun to lie to, “But now it’s time you know what it’s actually used for. It is not used for sex, in fact, it is one of the items that I think should definitely never be associated with anything sexual.”

Soonyoung gasped, “Is it...for murder?”

Jihoon started to correct him, but then thought back to all the episodes of Forensic Files he’d watched and paused, “Actually, sometimes. But not usually.”

Jihoon grabbed two blank sheets of printer paper, placing them between the ends of the stapler and squeezing the device, the loud clicking sound making Soonyoung jump - Jihoon couldn’t help but laugh at the literal demon jumping at the sound of a stapler.

“See?” Jihoon looked up at Soonyoung, holding up the two pieces of paper now held together, “That’s all it does.”

Soonyoung’s eyes were wide, jaw dropped, staring at the shiny silver staple, “Woah...that’s so cool!”

Never had Jihoon thought he would ever see someone so excited about a stapler. Then again, he never thought he’d have a demon sitting on his couch either. Maybe he should stop thinking.

Suddenly, Soonyoung was yanking the stapler from Jihoon’s grasp.

“Hey! That is most definitely not a civilized human thing to do!”

Soonyoung ignored him, studying the stapler in wonder for a moment before proceeding to rush to staple things together all over Jihoon’s apartment.

“Soonyoung!” Jihoon panicked, realizing Soonyoung didn’t know that not everything could be stapled, “It isn’t strong enough to-”

There was a loud clack of metal hitting metal as Soonyoung attempted to put a staple in Jihoon’s laptop to stick the two halves together.

“Soonyoung! Don’t you dare, that’s gonna break my laptop!” Jihoon rushed to try and grab the stapler away from the demon, but Soonyoung was too quick and turned away before Jihoon could take it from him.

“Well I didn’t mean to break your laptop. I won’t staple that anymore, but what else am I allowed to staple?”

“Paper. Just paper. That is all.”

Soonyoung wasn’t very good at listening. Or he just didn’t care. Probably both. Either way, within two hours of Jihoon introducing the demon to the true purpose of a stapler, everything in the house was stapled. The curtains? Stapled to themselves; now they didn’t even cover the windows. All of Jihoon’s jeans were stapled together in a terrifying circle. Jihoon didn’t know what that meant. But he didn’t like it. The last straw was probably when Jihoon got into bed that evening.

The moment Jihoon’s head hit the pillow he knew that it had been messed with; it didn’t feel right at all. It was too flat, it was completely out of shape. He reached up, trying to adjust it and then realizing that the other pillow came with it whenever it moved.

“Soonyoung, you stapled the pillows together?!”

Soonyoung slithered into the bed, rolling onto his side to face Jihoon, head on the other pillow, “And you said it couldn’t be used for sex.” As he spoke, Soonyoung slowly brought his hands up from under the covers to reveal that he was still clutching the stapler tightly.

Jihoon resisted punching the demon, instead choosing to violently rip the pillows apart and use his to cover his entire head, ignoring Soonyoung for the rest of the night.

\--

Jihoon had begun his Human Lessons the next day, praying that Soonyoung’s fascination would stay on the stapler and not transfer to any other everyday object. But, the minute the toast popped up from the toaster, Jihoon could tell the machine had Soonyoung’s full attention.

“FLYING BREAD!”

“No.”

Jihoon had to physically restrain Soonyoung from sticking his face in the toaster, holding him back on the other side of the kitchen while it cooled down.

“Soonyoung, it’s hot, you’re gonna burn yourself.”

“But I’m a demon! It won’t hurt me, just let me see where the magic bread comes from!”

“No, if you don’t burn yourself, you’ll break my toaster and I don’t have money to replace it.”

“I won’t break it, I promise.”

“Soonyoung. You’re a demon. Your promises mean nothing to me.”

Jihoon had gotten in the shower that morning, locking the door behind him, not wanting a repeat of the last time he didn’t lock the door. Within the span of Jihoon’s ten minute shower, Soonyoung had managed to toast all of the bread in Jihoon’s house, leaving a pile of cold toast on the counter as a ‘gift’ like a cat bringing its owner a dead bird.

“Soonyoung, why?”

“I made you toast!”

“But we don’t need toast. We already ate breakfast, and even if we hadn’t, we couldn’t eat eleven slices of toast!”

“It’s okay! We can just reuse it!”

“Soonyoung, that’s not how it works. Once bread is toasted you can’t un-toast it, it’s toast for good now. Listen, I’m not eating cold toast for every meal, you can have the toast.”

“Fine!” Soonyoung put his hands on his hips, “I’ll eat it all myself, then. Some civilized human you are, getting mad at me about bread.”

So, for the next week, Soonyoung ate almost exclusively toast. Jihoon offered him other foods, but the demon was determined to make a point by only eating the toast. What the point was, Jihoon wasn’t really sure, but he wasn’t going to argue with a determined demon. That seemed like a bad idea.

Because he still wanted bread for himself that hadn’t been toasted a week in advance, Jihoon made the choice to buy a loaf for himself and keep it hidden in the safe where he kept all his important documents - like taxes and bills. Bread was just as important now.

Unfortunately, one morning, Jihoon went to get himself a slice of bread, and instead found Soonyoung rummaging through his files.

“Soonyoung! What are you doing!?” Jihoon grabbed the demon by the shoulders, pulling him away from the safe to see bread crumbs all over the floor.

Soonyoung let out a shout in surprise, the piece of bread that was in his mouth tumbling to the ground. Jihoon was quick to spot the stapler in his left hand.

“The stapler helped me!” Soonyoung waved the office tool in the air wildly.

Jihoon sighed, resisting the urge to throw the stapler at Soonyoung, (Which would have been the perfect payback), instead surging forwards to pluck it out of the demon’s hands and crossing the room to the kitchen garbage. Jihoon stepped on the pedal and dumped the stapler inside when the lid opened, eliciting a scream from Soonyoung.

“Jihoon! How could you?! Put. Gerard. Back.”

“Gerard?”

“Well I had to give him a name!” Soonyoung wasted no time in reaching into the garbage, not cringing at all when he had to fish the stapler out from under scraps of old food. The stapler was now covered in rotten garbage, and Soonyoung quickly began running it under the sink water, covering it in a layer of dish soap.

Jihoon watched as Soonyoung washed his stapler, sighing and realizing that, for as long as Soonyoung held interest in the toaster, his bread was never going to be safe.

\--

Jihoon was getting used to being woken up in strange ways. It was almost always a small fire that got him up and ready for the day, but there was the occasional scream, or thud. However, he’d never woken up to a piece of toast flying into his face. That one was a new one.

“Soonyoung? Soonyoung! I know this is yours!”

“No, it’s yours! It’s your breakfast! Eat it!”

Jihoon attempted to sit up and move out of the line of impact as the bread continued to circle back and hit him in the face. Unable to see where it was coming from, Jihoon threw his arms up to protect himself.

“Soonyoung, what’s going on?! Where is this bread coming from!?”

He could hear Soonyoung laughing, and with his arms protecting him, Jihoon was able to scooch himself to the side and out of the way of the bread. He dropped his arms and opened his eyes to see that a piece of toast had been attached to his ceiling fan by a piece of string.

“Soonyoung, why?”

“Because! You said the toaster didn’t really make the bread fly, and I wanted it to! So I put it up there! It’s really dusty up there, you know, you should really clean that.” Soonyoung reached up, taking hold of a piece of string and taking a bite out of the corner of a piece of toast that was hanging from it.

Jihoon spluttered, “You came into my house, ruined my life, lost me my job, broke my appliances, and you’re telling me that I need to clean my ceiling fan?!”

“Well yeah!” Soonyoung pointed at the bread dangling from it, “We can’t eat off of a dirty surface. I want to be healthy.”

“Soonyoung, toast, mostly cold, three meals a day, is not healthy. If you want to be healthy, eat a carrot.”

“Are carrots made out of bread?”

“No Soonyoung,” Jihoon sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, “They’re not made of bread. Not everything is made of bread.”

“It should be. Are you gonna eat that?” Soonyoung pointed at the piece of bread now spinning back towards Jihoon. Jihoon shook his head, not incredibly compelled to eat ‘flying bread’. Soonyoung grinned, taking the slice and shoving it all in his mouth, thanking Jihoon through a mouthful of cold toast.

The room was silent, the only noise Soonyoung’s obnoxiously loud chewing of the cold flying bread. Jihoon took a moment to really look at what was happening, to look at the big picture. There was currently a demon. In his room. Eating cold toast. That was tied to the ceiling fan.

Suddenly, a bout of laughter overtook Jihoon, causing him to double over onto his sheets and put his head in his hands. Everything that had happened in the past few weeks had been so insane and absolutely impossible to have seen coming that it was somehow funny, and it was all just hitting Jihoon now.

“What’s so funny?” Soonyoung asked through a mouthful of toast.

Jihoon let his laughter die down to a giggle before answering, “Just...all of this. You, the stapler, the toast. It all feels like some kind of fever dream.”

“Well that can’t be good.” Soonyoung said, oblivious, “Maybe you just need to get out of the house more.”

Another, smaller, fit of laughter shook Jihoon’s shoulders as he thought about the fact that a demon was giving him life advice, “Yeah, maybe.”

Glancing up, Jihoon’s eyes landed on Soonyoung, realizing suddenly that he’d never really looked at the demon. From the first time he’d seen the other he’d only ever been mad, and unfortunately, when you’re mad, it’s not easy to allow yourself to appreciate someone’s looks. But boy did that demon have them. Jihoon gave himself a moment to admire the sharp, black-lined eyes that pointed slightly upwards, the rounded nose, and the v-shaped jawline that he hadn’t taken notice of before.

“Sooooo, are you just gonna stare at me or are we gonna go out?” Soonyoung’s voice snapped Jihoon out of his daze and he refocused his eyes on Soonyoung’s black ones.

“Well we could go out, but I don’t know what activity we could partake in without me looking insane for doing it alone.” Jihoon bit his lip as he thought, rejecting a trip to a museum, even though it would keep Jihoon occupied, a trip to the zoo, or any other place that parents took their children for the day so that they didn’t have to entertain them. Rollerskating, maybe? But Jihoon thought he’d look pretty strange holding hands with someone who wasn’t there. It took Jihoon a moment to realize that he’d just imagined himself rollerskating hand in hand with Soonyoung. What did that even mean? He pushed the thought away and continued down his list, hoping he’d forget that one sometime soon.

As any white suburban dad would, Jihoon ended up choosing a picnic. He assumed that he could lay out his blanket far enough away that, if he were to speak to Soonyoung, he wouldn’t be heard. Although, he could just use it as an excuse to ignore Soonyoung for the whole day. Tempting.

“How about a picnic?” Jihoon suggested, realizing he’d spaced out while thinking about what to do, looking up to see Soonyoung himself now dangling from the ceiling fan by one hand, attempting to use his foot to push off of Jihoon’s desk.

“What’s that?” He asked, succeeding in getting the fan to rotate - with him hanging off of it - but failing to hold on for longer than a few seconds with just his arm strength. Before Jihoon could even decide whether to explain what a picnic was or to yell at Soonyoung, the demon had fallen onto the end of the mattress, his weight catapulting Jihoon from his end of the bed. Jihoon flailed his arms, the beginning of a curse word escaping past his lips before he landed face first on Soonyoung’s chest.

He scrambled to sit up, hands searching for purchase with no logic, so he ended up most definitely palming Soonyoung in the face a couple of times before finally getting a grip on the mattress in the space between Soonyoung’s arm and torso. He pushed himself up, the other hand leveraging off of Soonyoung’s chest.

“Jihoon! You’re really that light?” Soonyoung grinned, really kind of amazed at how the teeny human had flown from his position on the bed.

“It doesn’t matter! Do you want a picnic or not?!” Jihoon was most definitely getting defensive, arms crossed as he glared at the floor.

“Yes I want a picnic! What’s a picnic?”

“A picnic is when you take a meal, usually lunch, and you eat it outside. On a blanket. In the grass. We can do it in the park down the street, but we have to stay secluded, I don’t want people to see a floating sandwich being devoured or hear me talking to no one.”

“You can eat outside?! Genius.” Soonyoung shook his head, taking another bite of a discarded piece of toast on the floor.

This was going to be a long lunch.

\--

Jihoon tried his best not to look like a crazy person when he walked into the public park, a picnic basket - or the closest he had to one, which was just his briefcase that he was no longer using for work - in one hand and a blanket rolled up under his other arm. He had his phone in his hand, one headphone plugging in so it looked like he was talking on the phone rather than to an invisible demon walking next to him.

“I’m so excited! I’ve never been to a picnic before! Or a park!”

“I think that was very clear when you asked what a picnic was.”

Jihoon reached a secluded area of the park, the best that they could get. It was barely covered by a few trees, but unfortunately, still gave the rest of the park a very good look at the crazy tiny man sitting all alone with a briefcase full of sandwiches.

Soonyoung wanted to help spread out the blanket but Jihoon wasn’t sure how to make that work without alarming anyone, the blanket shouldn’t be floating down onto the grass, so he did it himself, letting Soonyoung stand by the briefcase to ‘guard’ the food. Was it needed? No. But was it distracting? Yes.

Jihoon finally got their picnic set up, sitting cross-legged on the blanket. He gave Soonyoung plenty of room to sit on the other side of the blanket but for some reason, the demon plopped down directly beside Jihoon, grabbing the briefcase and digging out a sandwich.

“Soonyoung! Don’t, let me get it. You can’t let anyone see you moving things.” Jihoon swatted Soonyoung’s hands away from their lunch, unwrapping a sandwich for the demon and realizing that there was no way for Soonyoung to eat the sandwich that wouldn’t reveal that there was something strange going on. If Soonyoung held the sandwich, there would be a floating sandwich. If he didn’t hold the sandwich, he couldn’t eat it. He didn’t really think this picnic thing through.

Soonyoung reached for the sandwich, and Jihoon pulled it back quickly.

“Hey! I’m hungry!” Soonyoung whined.

“Okay, Soonyoung, first of all, do demons even need to eat? Second of all, sandwiches do not float, so I cannot just hand it to you.”

“Let’s eat it together then! Like the noodles!” Soonyoung suggested, obviously excited about and proud of his idea.

Considering he had no other ideas, Jihoon felt like he had no choice. This was his only option. He looked down at the small sandwich, then back up at Soonyoung’s ear to ear grin. He sighed, “Fine. But just for this sandwich. That’s it.”

Soonyoung nodded eagerly, already leaning in and opening his mouth. Jihoon inhaled deeply, mentally preparing himself, before putting the end of the sandwich in his mouth and leaning forward so Soonyoung could chomp down on the other end.

The moment the demon’s lips closed around the lunch food, Jihoon felt his face get tugged forward violently, the sandwich now nearly all the way in Soonyoung’s mouth and their noses pressed up against each other.

Jihoon’s eyes widened and he let out an involuntary, muffled noise of surprise before quickly removing his mouth from his end of the sandwich. As he pulled away, Soonyoung inhaled the rest of it, leaving Jihoon there to splutter and blink wildly.

Jihoon’s eyes were wide, “Soonyoung, what the fuck?!”

“It’s just how I eat! I can do that, I’m a demon. Remember?”

“But why do you do it?”

“Because it’s fun!” Soonyoung finally swallowed the sandwich in his mouth, reaching for another one that laid in the briefcase.

“Okay, ready?” Soonyoung brandished the end of the sandwich to Jihoon who hurriedly took it, not wanting anyone to see it hovering in midair.

“Um, no. I am not subjecting myself to that again. We’re figuring out another way to do this.”

It took Jihoon less than a minute to realize there was a much easier way to go about this, and he couldn’t help but think how stupid he was earlier not to have thought of it.

“Okay, I’m gonna hold the sandwich out in front of me and you’re gonna eat it. You are not to touch it. Got it?”

Soonyoung nodded, leaning in as Jihoon held up the sandwich and taking a bite. Jihoon did a quick once over of the park, checking to make sure no one was watching him like he was crazy. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any eyes on him, but mid-scan, he felt a sharp pain in his pointer finger.

“Ow!” He whipped his head back to see Soonyoung’s teeth clamped down on his finger, “Soonyoung what are you doing!? Let go!”

Soonyoung let go, laughing. Jihoon realized how loud he’d just said that and didn’t even bother checking for onlookers again - he knew there were eyes on him now. He turned to put the sandwich back in the briefcase, but Soonyoung wasn’t going to let that happen. The demon shot a hand out and yanked the sandwich from Jihoon’s hand.

“Soonyoung! We have to go, someone’s gonna find us out!”

“Jihoon, look!”

Jihoon turned his head, seeing Soonyoung pointing at a flock of geese a few feet away from them.

“Soonyoung, those are mean, don’t mess with them.”

“But I’m a demon, I’m mean too. Maybe we’ll get along! I’m going to give them my sandwich.”

“Soonyoung no!”

“Soonyoung yes!” Soonyoung crawled over to the edge of the blanket, breaking off a piece of bread and holding out his hand to the nearest goose. Jihoon wasn’t quite sure if the animal could see Soonyoung, or just a floating piece of bread, but whatever it was, the goose snatched it out of Soonyoung’s palm, swallowing it faster than Jihoon thought was possible.

“Soonyoung, never feed them, they’re not gonna leave us alone now.”

“Jihoon, look, they’re nice! It’ll be fine, stop stressing- hey!” Soonyoung turned his head to see the goose from earlier tugging at the bread from the sandwich in his hands, several other geese waiting threateningly behind the one in the front.

“Soonyoung…”

“Jihoon, what do I do?”

“Run.”

\--

Jihoon’s legs were aching, arms pumping hard as he tried keeping up with Soonyoung. Damn that demon and his long legs. Soonyoung had the picnic basket (the briefcase) and their blanket in his hands, so Jihoon was left with nothing but a horde of angry geese to worry about.

“Soonyoung! Wait up!” Jihoon screamed, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to make sure the geese weren’t gaining on him. While he was looking back, he heard a shout, and, unfortunately, looked back just a moment too late to stop himself from tripping on the edge of the park fountain, landing almost directly on top of Soonyoung, who had obviously tripped right before him.

Jihoon groaned as he rolled over, shins definitely bruised, clothes now soaked through. He lifted his head sharply, suddenly remembering Soonyoung, and scanned the fountain for the demon. Said demon was, luckily, still facedown in the fountain. The geese, however, not so luckily, were still running at top speed towards the two of them.

Jihoon sat up, scooching backwards in the water, throwing his hands up to protect his face, bracing for the sharp goose teeth.

“Take that!”

Jihoon slowly brought his arm down and opened his eyes to see Soonyoung hurling what appeared to be coins at the flock of angry geese. The geese - and any nearby park-goers - quickly dispersed at the flurry of metal discs shooting haphazardly from the fountain.

“Jihoon! Are you okay?” Soonyoung’s angry, pseudo warrior-like demeanor quickly vanished as he turned back, taking splashing steps towards Jihoon, who was still sitting in the water with an arm half-raised in self-defense.

“Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Thanks…?” Jihoon took a moment to reorient himself, glancing down and quickly realizing that he was soaked from head to toe. Soonyoung stood, about to offer a hand to help Jihoon up out of the water, but when he moved his foot, a wave of water washed over Jihoon, soaking him even further and splashing him all the way up to his face. Jihoon spluttered, using his hands to wipe the water from his eyes, even though his hands were dripping as well. Soonyoung was worried that Jihoon was hurt - he knew that human eyes were sensitive - but all Jihoon did was let out a soft laugh, shaking his head and leaning back on his hands.

“What the fuck. Just, what the fuck.”

Taking the response as a good sign, Soonyoung kicked the water, on purpose this time, splashing more onto Jihoon.

“Soonyoung!” Jihoon screeched, ducking down to avoid the incoming water, but just falling back into more of it behind him. Soonyoung giggled, quickly stepping to the side to avoid a wave that Jihoon sent crashing his way.

The two quickly devolved into splashing and laughing and eventually slipping and falling over and over again in the park fountain. Jihoon realized he hadn’t had this much fun in a while. If he was being honest, since Soonyoung had shown up, his life had become a lot more interesting than usual. It wasn’t like he was out on the town with friends all the time. His collection of Forensic Files DVDs showcased that well enough. It was...nice to have a friend for once.

Suddenly, Jihoon felt the back of his knee hit the rim of the fountain, and after a fruitless attempt to maintain balance, he fell forward, bracing himself by throwing his hands out in front of him. Unfortunately, (maybe), Jihoon toppled forwards directly on top of Soonyoung, their eyes going wide and gazes locking.

There was a moment of silence; the tension hanging in the small amount of air between their faces was thick enough to cut with a knife. Jihoon’s mind began racing, logical thoughts about how Soonyoung was a demon and how Soonyoung got him fired and Soonyoung was messing everything up, but in an instant, Jihoon shoved all those thoughts to the farthest corner of his mind, going completely blank as he closed the gap between them.

Soonyoung let out a sound of surprise, but didn’t pull away, letting the kiss happen. When he’d begged Jeonghan to assign him to Jihoon, he’d never anticipated that he’d end up kissing the tiny monster in a park fountain after being chased by a mob of angry geese. He was learning so much about how human minds worked.

As suddenly as the kiss began, it ended, as Jihoon pulled away and stood up quickly.

“I just realized that I probably look insane.”

\--

The human and the demon sat in silence on Jihoon’s couch, on opposite ends of the sofa and each clutching their own takeout containers. A movie played throughout the room but the silence between the men was stifling, and it was beginning to worry Soonyoung. It’s not like he had taken things too far, Jihoon had started it! But Soonyoung was beginning to wonder whether Jihoon regretted it.

Jihoon was perched on the edge of his sofa, eyes glued to a patch of carpet instead of paying attention to whatever was playing. He was not sure what to do. He didn’t know if he liked that he’d done it, but it wasn’t awful either. It definitely wasn’t an amazing kiss, both men were soaking wet and one was invisible, but it wasn’t terrible either. Jihoon was just confused.

After an hour and a half of suffering between the two, Soonyoung cleared his throat, “So, um...are we gonna talk about this?”

“What? Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about.” Jihoon was clearly panicked, rushing his words and refusing to look at the demon.

“Jihoon…” Soonyoung sighed, looking down at the floor dejectedly. So Jihoon did regret it. Or, he just didn’t like it.

“Soonyoung, I…” Jihoon finally turned his head to glance up at the other, “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. Well, actually, some of it is. Like the blender. And the lightbulbs. And the toaster. And the bread. And the ceiling fan. And the geese. But none of that matters, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is that nothing is wrong with you. Well, okay, something definitely is, but not in a bad way. I just mean, it’s not your fault that I kissed you. Well, obviously not because I did it, but I didn’t stop kissing you because I don’t like you. I actually really like you and I just realized that I do even though you’re a complete child sometimes but it’s kind of endearing but also it’s so frustrating, but honestly, I haven’t been that great of a friend to you anyways. And I know I never said we were friends but I think at this point we aren’t just acquaintances, you’ve literally been living in my house and have been with me all the time. Acquaintances don’t do that. But I mean I’ve been really rude to you and kind of a shit person generally so even though I really do like being around you sometimes you probably don’t know it because I’m literally the worst. You make my life actually interesting and I don’t really have any friends anyways so it’s nice that you’re here, but at this point I don’t know if I even deserve to call you a friend because you were just doing your job all those times and I was never understanding of that and I should’ve never been so mean to you and it’s not fair that I kissed you because I don’t deserve that. I don’t hate being around you, but I really don’t deserve to have you around anyways.”

“Jihoon, what? I understand you haven’t been nice to me, but I ruined your life! Sure it’s my job, but I lost you _your_ job, and I think you get to be angry for that. And I know you care. If you didn’t care, you would have sent me back. Not that you didn’t try.” Soonyoung smiled fondly at the memory of Jihoon summoning Satan in a rage, “But you even gave me human lessons, you took time to help me understand how things work here. That’s not being a shit person.”

Jihoon put his head in his hands, shaking it, “I don’t know, Soonyoung. The more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t think I’ve ever done anything genuinely nice for anyone. I only offered you human lessons so you’d stop destroying everything. That’s pretty shitty.”

Soonyoung scooted closer to Jihoon, placing a hand on the other’s back, “Jihoon, even if you just wanted me to stop destroying things - which is perfectly understandable - you still took the time to teach me these things. Even before we were having official ‘human lessons’. You taught me what movies are. You taught me how to eat food. You taught me not to walk in on humans in the bathroom. Just because you were frustrated with me, and for completely understandable reasons, doesn’t mean you’re a shit person. Listen, I’ve been watching you for months.”

Jihoon’s head shot up, “You what?”

Soonyoung quickly backtracked, “I know it sounds weird, but Hell gets boring sometimes, okay? I was watching a lot of people when I came across you, and I guess I just...sensed that you were someone I would want to be around, and I wasn’t wrong. Eventually, I was begging to be assigned to you just so I could talk to you. I know when I first got here, I messed a lot of things up. I was doing what I’d been taught to do - destroy people’s lives. But in these past months I’ve come to realize that humans work differently than demons. Destroying everything you hold dear is obviously not an attractive trait to humans, and you were the one that taught me that. You’ve taught me how to be human.”

“If I’ve taught you how to be human, then please stop toasting all of my bread.” Jihoon mumbled, letting a soft smile creep across his face.

“It’s just fun!”

The two broke into laughter, the uncomfortable tension broken.

“Jihoon?”

“Hm?" Jihoon glanced up at Soonyoung, trying his best not to admire the man for too long.

“Was the kiss bad? Earlier, in the fountain? Remember, that kiss?”

“Yes, I remember it; when have we ever kissed before?”

“The shower when I attempted to save your life. And during Lady and the Tramp.”

“Well, I mean, I don’t think those counted.”

“Whatever. Anyways, was it bad?”

Jihoon thought for a moment, “Not bad. Just not good either.”

“Oh.” Soonyoung sighed, wondering if it was a demon thing, an invisible thing, a goose thing, or a soaking wet thing. Or just...a Soonyoung thing.

“I mean, it wasn’t bad like that! It was just, well, not the ideal place to do it. And it was slippery. I almost fell like three times.”

“Well, now that we’re dry, would you want to try again?’

“What?” Jihoon felt his cheeks heat up, not sure if that was a good idea.

“I mean, we’re alone now, and in your apartment. Wouldn’t that be better?”

Jihoon stared at Soonyoung for a moment, debating if agreeing to kiss a demon was going to land him in hell after he died. Realizing that he was probably already going to hell without a doubt, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to Soonyoung’s.

Soonyoung’s hands shot out to grab Jihoon’s face, cupping the man’s cheeks like he’d seen happen in those Disney movies that they’d watched together. The two broke apart after a moment and stared at each other, slightly breathless, eyes locking.

“You know what comes after kissing, Jihoon?” Soonyoung had a shit-eating grin on his face and Jihoon was terrified, a sense of dread rising in his gut.

“What?”

Soonyoung said nothing, only pulling something out of his back pocket. Jihoon saw that it was his stapler, eyes widening as Soonyoung clicked the stapler’s halves together, wiggling his eyebrows.

Jihoon roughly shoved Soonyoung’s shoulder, laughing, “Come here, dumbass.” He grabbed the front of Soonyoung’s shirt, pulling him into another kiss.


End file.
